YACHT

Friday, August 14

Perhaps, like me, you first stumbled across YACHT -- a.k.a. Oregon native and long-time musician Jona Bechtolt, whos been in bands since junior high -- a couple of years ago when he opened for LCD Soundsystem at the Showbox. Unsure at first what to make of the wide-eyed, bushy-haired twenty-something as he sang and spastically danced around the stage to the quirky electro jams coming out of his beat-up white iBook, the crowd steadily warmed up to his tunes and stage presence, and by the end of his short but memorable set, people were cheering him wildly. A bit has changed in the two-plus years since. Bechtolt brought his girlfriend, vocalist/programmer Claire Evans, into the YACHT fold. The duo signed to DFA Records, which just issued their new LP, See Mystery Lights. They developed a strange affinity for triangles (see: their logo, album artwork, and press photos). And theyve turned YACHT into a mysterious, quasi-mythical/mystical, manifesto-spouting band-cum-art project somewhere between Daft Punk and Lansing-Dreiden. Still, on the music front, not much has changed: Its still an odd, charming, and energetic mix of minimal electro, dance-punk, and indie-pop. (All ages.) MICHAEL ALAN GOLDBERG